Table 2.

Quotes for each theme from the patient's perspective

Themes	Quotations for illustration
Social functioning and interpersonal relationships	Quote 1: ‘So the client's own picture of themselves [how the client themselves feels that they function], but also how those around them feel that they function. Because I think that's what's most important, if you can function more or less normally, like you used to.’ (Participant 12, man, age 52) Quote 2: ‘I was finally functioning without medication, and I thought that was fine. It is fine until another bump comes along and then you start all over again. If I ask myself now; I just want to be able to function again and, if necessary, with medication, like I did a few years ago. For me, that's my recovery.’ (Participant 3, man, age 52)
Prevention of future recurrences	Quote 3: ‘If you've been given um, enough things to hold on to to pull yourself up at times when you are sinking. Learning to recognize and know what you have to do about it. Identifying and tackling it.’ (Participant 17, woman, age 25). Quote 4: ‘Another way of dealing with it …, is to be able to relate success to your ability to deal with a setback yourself. Without having to go straight back into treatment or taking more pills, that when there are setbacks, a hard day, which in the past would have sent you straight into the abyss, now you have learned, first I have to do this and then I have to do that and watch out for this and so on…’ (Participant 1, man, age 60)
Acceptance of illness and managing the depression	Quote 5: ‘During my first depressive episode, I really wanted things to be just like they were before. Although I did think that that would never happen, it was in fact my one sole wish. And, um, well, it's turned out be very different now from before, but better actually. But it was, it's been quite a process to accept things and to make adjustments.’ (Participant 13, woman, age 41) Quote 6: ‘I see recovery as learning to deal with your situation and to keep going. Because it will never make me better. And that has determined, and still determines, how I live my life and how I deal with my disabilities, what I do and what I don’t do. Those are two aspects that the… um, come back every day. What do I do and what do I forget about? That’s what, that's what it actually boils down to.’ (Participant 16, woman, age 69).
Personal goals and societal expectations	Quote 7: ‘That you go shopping, go to work and have a social life, and that this can be too much for people, or whether your goals is in fact that you can at least have a social life again, or just go to work, that can differ from one client to the next. But the outside world says, you're not really part of things again unless you're working, and that's what I'd really like to do.’ (Participant 3, man, age 52). Quote 8: ‘There is, for example, another goal that I have: in my contact with others I want to be less troubled by certain things, but that's not the same as not having any symptoms any more. And in my view, a practitioner often tends to look from that perspective, if things are x and y, then z is automatically the case, whereas it isn't always like that. Sometimes I can feel really good.’ (Participant 2, woman, age 22). Quote 9: ‘For almost everyone I can think of an example, with all the questionnaires [routine outcome monitoring questionnaires/symptom rating scales] that you have to fill in, that at some time they say, oh, you're doing a lot better, and that you definitely don't feel that yourself. So um, that's not the whole story.’ (Participant 1, man, age 60)